Speed Theory Insider Info...

Back to Blog

Trek Speed Concept 7.0 2013

The new range of Trek Speed Concepts finally arrived in NZ last week, allowing two of my clients to finally get some sleep (as they both wished to race on the weekend just gone).The XL model had to be special ordered so is the only one around, the small is a bit more widely available. I was pleasantly surprised by how sharp the white-green-black paint scheme looks in person – very crisp. In fact the graphics are much refined overall – not nearly as many TREK labels as previous models.As usua...

Orbea Ordu 2013

Last year Orbea suffered the indignity of having their star athlete, Craig Alexander, abandon them mid-season – breaking a life-time contract as he had discovered in the wind tunnel how much time he was losing to competitors on better bikes.Orbea have finally done something about this with the release of a new Ordu for 2013. I’ve noticed a few things so as usual will offer a view other than that of regurgitated press releases. The Orbea Ordu has never been a bike I’ve rated highly – hard...

Cervelo P5 Detail Pictures

The long awaited Cervelo P5s have actually now landed in the country. The limited numbers so far produced (128 54s and 56s) mean that NZ only received 3 bikes.Here is a close look at some of the details that get left out of press release based reviews. Lots of pictures rather than just the excessive verbiage I usually indulge in. For my thoughts on the information that was released during the launch see this article. Today I’ll be addressing some other elements including those that are on...

Waikato Schools TTT 24-June-2012

Photos from this mornings Team Time Trial. As usual it took me a while to find settings that worked well for the conditions – then just as I managed to take a couple of photos that weren’t too bad there was a crash a bit further down the road so photo taking became a lower priority....

Thoughts on the Mavic CXR80

Mavic have long lagged behind the rest of the wheel market on the aerodynamics front, instead coming out with rather dubious ”features” that created some of the slowest high end wheels around.Some time in the last couple of years someone at Mavic had an epiphany… “our customers want fast wheels!!” (maybe they got tired of bikesnobnyc making fun of them)Thus, they claim to have spent 400 hours in the wind tunnel in the past year. The new CXR80 wheel/tyre system is a produ...

Waikato Schools TTT 27-May-2012

Photos of the Team Time Trial held at Karapiro. Images are in order of when teams went past on the outbound then return legs. How good the image of your team is pretty much comes down to luck of the draw…...

Cervelo P4 – A Chequered Career

With the incipient release of the Cervelo P5 the P4 will be superseded and apparently dropped from the product line. So it seems appropriate to review the highs and lows of the model before it is overshadowed by the dawning of a glorious new age (if the hype around the coming P5 is to be believed).My relationship with this bike did not start well. But I’m married to a woman who initially thought I was an arrogant know it all (she doesn’t think I’m arrogant anymore), so obviously I’m not ...

Monitoring Training Effect

The reason we train is to improve…right? Especially when you’ve gone to the expense of having a power meter and coach. I admit to frequent bouts of amazement at the people that I see devoting endless (I can’t say countless when we’re all using equipment to count every second/watt/stroke/stride etc) hours and thousands of dollars to their sporting pursuits without seeing meaningful improvement.This article is about a simple way for power users to set goals and monitor whether th...

Trek Speed Concept 7.5 2012

For 2012 the Speed Concept 7.5 upgrades to an OCLV frame (slightly higher manufacturing quality than the previous TCT) but mimics the paint scheme of the 2011 7.0.Here are a few images of a recent build. Though I must apologise for the poor lighting – I don’t have quite the same obsession with taking photos that I do for bikes or analysis.Only a few changes from stock on this bike. Bontrager S-Bend aerobars swapped to Vision J-Bend for better comfort/fit, Bontrager carbon basebar swappe...

Cobb Saddles

Every bike fit I’ve ever done has involved a discussion about saddles. Being happy with what you’re sitting on is key to enjoying the hours on the bike and many riders have failed to enjoy their expensive machines purely for the sake of the saddle.So being able to supply good saddles is important for me to be able to do my job well. Which is why I was quite pleased to find out that Sam Warriner and her husband Steve had decided to bring in Cobb saddles.One of the reasons for my pleasure at t...

Giro Selector

One of the more hotly anticipated product releases this year has been “Lances Helmet” – the new Giro aero helmet that we saw on the Pro cyclists in 2010 but had to wait an age for the consumer version.That helmet is now available to the rest of us with the moniker ‘Selector’ – referring to the modularity of the helmets attachments.The most obvious component that you have to select is the clip on underside. The two options are shown here – a flat tail and one that tapers downwa...

38mm Wheels – Ideal for Novices

For those of you not familiar with cycling grades – Novice refers to the Under 17 age group. For the younger age categories there are restrictions on gearing and equipment. Most notably that they can’t have carbon wheels.So these are among the fastest wheels that a Novice rider is allowed to use. Not that their use is restricted to that category as they are good speed per dollar for any age.View of the hubsThe rims are 38mm deep and 20mm wide (made by Kinlin) and have been built up with...

Hed Jet 9

The Jet 9 (9 referring to the 90mm depth) are the latest take on Heds well proven alloy clincher rims with a carbon fairing. They were one of the pioneers of the re-adoption of wide rims and for 2011 added ‘SCT’ (stability control technology) to the rim shaping to better control crosswind behaviour.Tony Martin famously used a Jet 9 front in winning the World Champs Time Trial this year, making that rare decision for a pro cyclist, using a clincher instead of a tubula...

Understanding Saddle Contact Points

Once upon a time your options for saddles were basically either a Turbo or a Rolls. Happily those days are now well behind us as there are a plethora of saddle options available. Not only brands and models but different widths of those models. How can we compare them? By measuring them and analysing the numbers of course! Understanding what the important differences are in saddle measurement makes choosing your next saddle (or preserving your position when you change saddles) much easier. Ideall...

Triathlon Bike Fit

I can always tell when the mood of the triathlon community turns from winter hibernation to preparing for a new season – I get a surge of enquiries about bike fit. As I’m seeing fresh signs of activity for the coming summer (and the Half IM season is upon us in the North Island) I thought it appropriate to discuss why bike fit is important and how you can tell whether you need to pay attention to yours.I’m going to focus on triathlon bike positioning for this article. The principles for a ...

Specialized Shiv – A Practical Superbike?

The last few weeks have been pretty exciting in the world of triathlon bikes. First Craig Alexander is seen on a Cervelo P4 which he then used to win the Ironman 70.3 World Champs. Specialized then stepped in to get him on their new bike. His subsequent third win at Kona (Ironman World Champs) was the culmination of an extremely slick release of the new bike.That bike is the Shiv Tri which brings some very cool features to the market. Of course, the moment they released their data I started plug...

The Difference Between Boys & Girls Part 2

Following on from Part I, where I offered proof against most of the common perceptions about the differences in physical proportions between genders, I’ll address the things that are different between Men and Women from a Cycling equipment perspective? Girls tend to like cutout saddles, this model serves well for many of my clients. The most obvious difference is one that I’m not going to show pictures of, suffice to say that it has a marked effect on which saddles will work for yo...

The Difference Between Boys & Girls – Part 1

Womens Specific (WS or WSD or Femme etc) products have been a hot market in the cycling industry in the last few years. The marketing for such items is driven by emphasising the differences between Males and Females and that, therefore, the ladies need different equipment.Are the ‘facts’ about the differences based on reality? Or merely a convenient marketing justification? What a comprehensive survey shows is that, wait for it, taller people tend to have longer legs, arms and hands – but ...

The Wind and You – Understanding Yaw

If you have taken the time to read the ads and articles about bike equipment in the last few years you will have noticed increasing use of ‘yaw’ in the technobabble.To help you understand what this is and what it means for your purposes here is a primer on the topic with some examples of NZ races to give  perspective on what the ‘real world’ application is.Think of Yaw as the “effective wind angle” – if you’re riding along at 30kph and there is a direct sidewind of 5kph...

Wide rims?

There has been a lot of excitement about wide rims on road bikes in the last couple of years. Various claims have been made about the advantages of the concept and effusive reviews abound on the web. For your edification I’ll summarise the claims and offer some history and perspective. Claims about wide rims: New “technology”Lower Rolling Resistance for the tyresBetter comfortImproved corneringBetter aerodynamics At this point wide rims sound like the panacea for all ills, so lets look a l...

Trek Speed Concept 7.0

One of my clients wanted to upgrade his Tri bike from the faithful steed that I set him up on five years ago. At the top of the option list I gave him was the Speed Concept 7.0 – not only does it offer the best value but after running the numbers it also offered the best match for his position (it’s nice when life works out that way). It’s an impressive bike on paper and in the flesh, the thought that has gone into the Speed Concept (SC) range clearly shows. It’s no stretch to say that t...

In The Tunnel

Every Aero geeks dream is access to a windtunnel. Recently I was able to spend time in the tunnel again, but this time I got to take my own bike as well rather than just managing the session for others. I learned a few interesting things, some of which I’ll now share. Though first I should provide some details of the setup. The tunnel is in the University of Canterbury (in Christchurch, NZ) Engineering department. They actually have three, this is the largest of them and is open. The smaller v...